A thesis — only a single one
January 26, 1855. S. Kierkegaard.
O Luther, thou hadst 95 theses — terrible! And yet, in a deeper sense, the more theses, the less terrible. This case is far more terrible: there is only one thesis.
The Christianity of the New Testament simply does not exist. Here there is nothing to reform; what has to be done is to throw light upon a criminal offense against Christianity, prolonged through centuries, perpetrated by millions (more or less guiltily), whereby they have cunningly, under the guise of perfecting Christianity, sought little by little to cheat God out of Christianity, and have succeeded in making Christianity exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament.
In order that the common Christianity here in our country, the official Christianity, may be said truly to be even so much as related to the Christianity of the New Testament, we must make it known, as honestly, as openly, as solemnly as possible, how remote it is from the Christianity of the New Testament, and how little it can truly be called an endeavor in the direction of coming nearer to the Christianity of the New Testament.
So long as this is not done, so long as we either make as if nothing were the matter, as if everything were all right, and what we call "Christianity" is the Christianity of the New Testament, or we perform artful tricks to conceal the difference, tricks to support the appearance that it is the Christianity of the New Testament — so long as this Christian criminal offense continues, there can be no question of reforming, but only of throwing light upon this Christian criminal offense.
And to say a word about myself: I am not what the age perhaps demands, a reformer — that by no means, nor a profound speculative spirit, a seer, a prophet; no (pardon me for saying it), I am in a rare degree an accomplished detective talent. What a marvelous coincidence that I am contemporary precisely with that period of Church history which, in a modern sense, is the period of "witnesses to the truth," when all are "holy witnesses to the truth."